The following statement can be attributed to Carri Bennet, RTG’s General Counsel:

SoftBank’s strategic investment in Sprint is a welcome move. Just as in Japan (where it took over a lagging 3rd-place Vodafone and made it relevant again) SoftBank is poised to preserve Sprint as a fierce competitor to the Twin Bells. From the perspective of rural carriers and consumers, the presence of a strengthened Sprint is a win-win since Sprint has always been a supportive roaming partner of smaller rural carriers and rural consumers. From the experience of RTG members, Sprint has eagerly entered into rural roaming arrangements with smaller competitors so that Sprint customers can enjoy ubiquitous mobile voice and data coverage when outside of Sprint market areas, and in turn, Sprint has welcomed rural consumers to roam onto its own network at fair and reasonable rates. The SoftBank-Sprint alliance shows that innovation, investment and acquisitions do not always have to include consolidation nor a reduction in competition.


About RTG – Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Rural Telecommunications Group, Inc. (RTG) is a trade association representing rural wireless carriers who each serve less than 100,000 subscribers. RTG’s members have joined together to speed delivery of new, efficient and innovative telecommunications technologies to remote and underserved communities. ruraltelecomgroup.org @RTGwireless

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